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What a story the former CEO of eBay told last night to 800 techies packed into the NVTC annual banquet at the Tysons Ritz Carlton. Sure, she may be a billionaire now and John McCain's top business advisor. But before a headhunter approached her about the eBay job ten years ago, she was brand manager at Hasbro for its top product Mr. Potato Head. She wasn't interested in moving to California and thought the 30-employee startup was going nowhere. But after talking to the 29-year old founder for 6 hours, she called her neurosurgeon husband and told him he'd better find a job on the west coast.

Now, we've known Worth MacMurray, left, 11 years but never knew Meg Whitman was his second cousin. The two were both at Princeton class of '77 and took several classes together, like Uwe Reinhardt's Econ 101. Worth is at Grant Thornton, having just returned from working on compliance programs with Siemens in Germany the last couple years. On the right, loyal readers will recognize Consumer Electronics Association head Gary Shapiro. As for Meg, she told the crowd how she learned the most important thing in starting a business is to focus, focus, focus, and innovate,innovate, innovate. We read she's thinking about running to succeed Ahnold in 2010. Appropriately, she also talked about public policy issues like the importance of science education and keeping capital gains taxes low.

SAIC CIO Charles Beard, Republican Congressional candidate Keith Fimian, Korn Ferry recruiter Lorraine Lavet, and Sybase VP and GM, Public Sector Bob Laurence. Keith is running to succeed Tom Davis, who, by the way, was on hand to receive the 2008 Chairman's award for his help to the tech community and his spirit of bipartisanship. Former NVTC Chairman Sudhakar Shenoy joked that Tom was the most expensive friend he'd ever had (given all the campaign contributions) and that he'd bought a platinum sponsorship just to make sure Tom retired. Surprise guest John Warner brought the house to an emotional high making his own valedictory appearance and helping Reps. Jim Moran and Frank Wolf present the award. Speaking of politics, NVTC prez and GOP stalwart Bobbie Kilberg teams up with 96-year-young Roberta McCain for a four day campaign swing through Virginia starting Wednesday. Bobbie: Good luck keeping up with Roberta.

Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates (most important guy in Virginia?) Bill Howell, center, flanked by regional Boy Scouts local head Alan Lambert, George Mason First Lady Sally Merten, Global Logic Chairman Mike Daniels, and SAIC SVP for Risk Management Mike Mendler. Mike D. tells us he recently joined the board of directors at Logistics Managements Institute and will be traveling the Commonwealth more this year as chairman of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. Though that didn't stop him from hiking and snorkeling recently in Belize.

Craig Linebaugh, COO of GW's Ashburn campus, with Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Jennifer Farris, Cheryl Moore and Vijay Samalam. The gang from HHMI is creating a three-dimension model of a fly's brain to map activity during different activities (they must have a good magnifying glass). Cheryl cast her absentee ballot last weekend, but is keeping her choice a secret, though we hear it rhymes with Lobama.

It's nice to see some of our Top 35 Entrepreneurs Under 35 mingling amongst the fogies: KZO Innovations Jeff Pulver and Wes Cruver. Of course this duo is smiling since Valhalla Partners is about to put a second round of funding into their pockets (that can help pay for the CMO and sales VP they just hired). Jeff and Wes just got back from a camping trip with friends to West Virginia that was summed up as "drinking in the woods with a big fire."

Lustig Communications' Brian Lustig with Vision Network's Louis D'Alessandro and Arun Gurjale. Arun tells us Vision Network is working with the FAA and DHS on the Secure Flight program at airports that quickly screens passengers to keep the bad guys off. Arun works in high tech, but he does some of his best work with a knife carving Indian statues.

Venable's Bill Walsh, LMI's Manik Rath and Beers + Cutler's Tony Fuller. Manik tells us LMI has had record profits the past four years and acquired Jasmah Consulting in July. These guys though would rather talk football, namely the 'Skinswin in Detroit and next week's Monday-nighter against the Steelers.

It's the next generation of female business leaders (and one guy): General Dynamics' Laurie Wright and Madeline Hill, N.E.W. Customer Service's Tania Corren, ThinkFun's Sarah Hart (her husband Michael, of Jones Lang LaSalle, is the 12-foot guy in the back), Northrop's Melanie Yaeger and Virginia Tech's Karime Shamloo. All of these are applicants to Tech's exclusive Executive MBA program, except Karime, who heads admissions, and Laurie, who is already enrolled. We love Virginia Tech!

Capital Search Group's Lou Del Riego with KenRay Partners' Ken Logue and Ray Rice (wonder how they picked their name). They all specialize in finding CEOs for tech start-ups, but sadly all we could get Ray to talk about was his weekend in Dewey Beach with his two grandkids or how Ken just ran the Marine Corps Marathon in four hours and one minute at age 52.

David Stegon turned 27 at 12:17 a.m. this morning. Send all birthday gifts to David Stegon c/o Bisnow on Business, 1323 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington DC, 20036. Or you can send story ideas in their place to David@Bisnow.com

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